Pendulous Sedge carex, maintenance?

Hello everyone, just joined today. Look forward to being a member and asking plenty of questions! I work as a gardener at a school, and used to use the gardeners world for him which was amazing but found this one as I thought I'd post on here. I have some rather large Sedge, and it's used in the green bed at school as each of the four beds represent clan colors north, south east and west, I hate the carex, Sedge, but it's ideal to have year-round color in the green bed, I'm trimming back the long stems and cutting back some of the blades, although they are very sharp, almost like a phormium, but much more aggressive on the hands when it comes to maintenance with these could I literally cut it right back down to almost ground level to promote new growth? Or is it best just to do one blade at a time which might take a while. I like the structure as it is currently as it's very symmetrical when they add shape to the back of the bed. But it would be nice to promote New growth as they've been in there a couple of years. I thought maybe I could split down the outsides and just trim down the middle and remove any dead. But if it helps the plant and his overall beneficial, I could just cut the whole thing down to a bushy stump which should in theory shoot up when we are further into spring and summer. Unless it will take a while for them to reach a decent height? Thanks

 

I used to take the hedge cutters to it, at ground level in early spring. Never managed to kill the awful stuff.

 

It grows wild here and it’s a nightmare to control. Do your worst.

 

Thanks everyone. It has quite a nice shape to the bed. I can't seem to send a picture on here, but I guess it will grow back pretty quick, I think I might cut it right back. Maybe not to ground level but a quarter of the height. So it's like a small mound which will encourage any new growth to take. Shape is quite nice with the long stems, but I know it's seeds everywhere. I'm just trying to keep some uniform shape to the beds but I think if I leave it too much longer it's going to get even more overcrowded. I guess it doesn't really matter how far down you cut. If you can go down to almost ground level I guess even if I did half height a third or a quarter it wouldn't really matter. In terms of the growing structure, it's just more about keeping the shape I guess? Thanks

 

I have cut and shaped them to about half height or probably even less because I wanted them to stay as a mound shape, do you guys think I should cut them down even more or not worry about shaping and just cut them to ground level as obviously the new leaves will shoot up to their own shape. I don't want to overdo it, but I didn't want it to look too bare as they did add quite nice shape to the beds but they were getting extremely crowded so I'm guessing this year they will shoot up a fair bit. Thanks!

 

Just cut them back using a strimmer or hedge trimmers and cut as short as you like. Grasses grow from the base, not the tip and any dead leaves and stems left sticking up and brown will make it look even worse than it does already.

Horrid plant so, if you can, sow some seeds of better grasses such as miscanthus or buy a couple in pots and divide them to grow on in pots to divide again till you have enough to replace all the carew weed.

 

The leaves that you've cut in half won't grow back their pointed tips. although they might carry on growing from the base. They'll always have the ugly cut-off ends. So, I would chop them right back more-or-less to the ground and wait for new leaves to grow from the base, which will have the pointed tips and will develop the arching shape as they grow.

(Actually if they were mine I'd get rid pronto, nasty stuff, and invasive if you have conditions that it likes. But each to their own)